Two season’s bests for Ntutu in Netherlands

Double Paralympian track athlete Jonathan Ntutu picked up a pair of season’s best performances in Europe at the weekend.

And the Cape Town athlete has been boosted by his form ahead of the IPC Para Athletics World Championships in London next month.

Visually impaired Ntutu races in the T12 classification and won the 100m in 11.11 seconds and the 200m in 22.85sec at the Gouden Spike meeting in Leiden, Netherlands.

‘I was among a few Dutch IPC athletes who competed at this able-bodied competition,’ Ntutu, pictured centre above, told the SASCOC website. ‘I’m now at the same place I was last year when I won silver over 100m at the Rio Paralympics.

‘After running SB’s in both the 100m and the 200m races I must say the amount of weight/faith that SASCOC and Simeka Capital Holdings have thrown behind me makes a tremendous amount of difference.

‘Thank you to SASCOC for their unwavering support. Because of them I will be travelling to Italy to go and fine-tune, and then it’s off to London for the World Championships.’

On his actual races, Ntutu said: ‘Conditions were very good. The wind was in our favour and the sun was out so I couldn’t have asked for better.

‘I made the mistake of being late for my 200m warm-up and only had 15min to rush my warm-up. But I ran and got that season’s best. I was actually really surprised and asked coach Paul [Gorries] if he was sure that they hadn’t make a mistake.

’My 100m was very good. Coach Paul is happy with the days’ work and so am I. With four weeks to get sharp, I’m very excited for what’s to come. And again, I’m extremely grateful for all my backers who stand strong behind me – SASCOC, Simeka and Hidow SA.’